


Bury Me In Brooklyn

by goldheartedsky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Could Use Some Therapy, Child Abuse, Declarations Of Love, Emotionally Repressed, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23074567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheartedsky/pseuds/goldheartedsky
Summary: The skin on his face erupts in a sharp, stinging ache as his father slaps him again—hard and cutting enough to make him taste blood. His heart drops into his stomach when his father grabs his jaw, fingers digging into tender skin. “Enough,” his father says, voice low. “Pack your things. I’m getting you a train ticket for Sunday morning.” Three days. He only has three days. Bucky can’t hold back the sob that tears out of his throat and his father tightens his grip. “You’re an adult now, it’s time you start acting like one.”The door slams and all the air rushes out of Bucky’s lungs. He’s not crying anymore, thank God, but the dread has numbed him too much for the tears to come. He can’t go to Harvard. He can’t go to Cambridge. He can’t be a lawyer, can’t do anything his parents want him to. But he’s trapped. He’s trapped in this life with no escape and he’s about to be shipped three states away in three days.He has to see Steve.Has to tell him before it’s too late.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 19
Kudos: 103





	Bury Me In Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, sorry this is really sad but I’ve been stressed out at work and needed to write something angsty! Please be mindful of the tags!

* * *

“Mame, please just listen to me!”

“Don’t speak to your mother like that, James.”

“Tate, I’m not trying to be smart! But neither of you are listening to me! What about what I—”

His father’s hand cracks across his cheek, shutting Bucky up effectively. Tears spring to his eyes as he averts his gaze to the ground. His breath hitches and it takes every ounce of self control not to start crying. He can’t cry in front of his mother, let alone his father. Talking back was bad enough.

“We have worked hard to give you every opportunity your mother and I never had,” his father says, voice hard and unwavering. “You are going to Harvard and you are getting your law degree. We’ve let you have your fun but now it’s time for you to amount to something.”

“B-But…Tate, Cambridge is six hours away…”

“You will be able to take the train home for winter and summer breaks. This will give you a chance to be your own man, to spend less time attached to that Rogers boy.” Bucky’s eyes burn and he wipes them roughly with the heel of his hand. He knows what his father’s face must look like—full of disgust and disappointment. “You have no idea how lucky you are to even have the option of going to a school like Harvard Law. They don’t want our people there and you think that your admission is worth nothing? Ungrateful child.”

“I’m s-sorry, Tate.” He sounds weak and pitiful, sounds like the broken boy he is. Bucky wants to ask the question that’s most on his mind, but he knows it would only make things worse.

_‘But what about Steve?’_

An overwhelming coldness settles deep inside his chest and Bucky suddenly feels like he can’t breathe. He can’t leave Brooklyn. He can’t leave the life he’s built here, can’t leave the only place he feels safe. Can’t leave the boy he loves, especially without telling him.

“Put your tears away, James,” he hears his mother say, softer than his father but with no less bite. “There’s no use for them. You’re to do as your father says.”

Bucky looks up and meets her eyes, desperately trying to keep his bottom lip from quivering. Does she know what this will do to him? Does she know and just doesn’t care? Maybe she just regretted giving her only son too much leniency during adolescence and now it’s finally caught up with them both. A single tear slips past his eyelashes as he begs, voice barely above a whisper, “Mame…Please d-don’t make me go…”

His feet stumble as his father wraps a hand in the fabric of his collar and drags Bucky down the hall toward his room. “I am done with your back talk, James,” he snarls, ripping the door open with one huge and throwing Bucky in with the other. The eighteen year old falls to the ground, hands clenching into fists to keep them from shaking. “If I hear one more word about this, I’m sending you north for the entire summer, before school even starts.”

Panic burns like wildfire through Bucky’s veins as he looks up at his father with terrified eyes. “You can’t!” he screams.

The skin on his face erupts in a sharp, stinging ache as his father slaps him again—hard and cutting enough to make him taste blood. His heart drops into his stomach when his father grabs his jaw, fingers digging into tender skin. “Enough,” his father says, voice low. “Pack your things. I’m getting you a train ticket for Sunday morning.” Three days. He only has three days. Bucky can’t hold back the sob that tears out of his throat and his father tightens his grip. “You’re an adult now, it’s time you start acting like one.”

The door slams and all the air rushes out of Bucky’s lungs. He’s not crying anymore, thank God, but the dread has numbed him too much for the tears to come. He can’t go to Harvard. He can’t go to Cambridge. He can’t be a lawyer, can’t do anything his parents want him to. But he’s trapped. He’s trapped in this life with no escape and he’s about to be shipped three states away in three days.

He has to see Steve.

Has to tell him before it’s too late.

~~~

Steve is almost asleep when he hears a faint tapping on his window over the sound of rain.

He blinks awake and rubs his eyes groggily. Sitting up, he looks over to see Bucky crouched outside his window frame, dark hair plastered to his forehead. His blue eyes were wide and far-off, even in the darkness, but there was still a lazy smile spread across his face. Steve scrambles across the room and opens the window, letting the older boy clamber inside.

“Buck? What the hell are you doing here?”

The other boy’s smile wavers as he slips his wet jacket off and sits on the edge of the bed. “My folks are…They’re still making me go to Harvard. I can’t get out of it, Stevie.”

“Shit.”

He drops down next to Bucky and the silence is painful. He’s known about the Barnes’ plans for their son for years now, knows it’s the reason that Bucky’s worked so hard in school—anything to get his parents off his back about his future. But now, two weeks after graduation, it had all become real.

Steve flips the light on and takes a better look at his friend. There’s a fresh, red bruise on the left side of his face and a slight scabbed-over split in his lip. He reaches out and touches the brunet’s bottom lip with his thumb, asking quietly, “He do that?” Bucky doesn’t look at him, only pulls himself out of reach and nods. Steve’s stomach curls and he has to swallow down the lump in his throat before he can say anything else. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about anymore, is there?” Bucky snaps, almost a little too quickly. “Nothing either of us can do about me leaving now.”

“Have you tried talking to—”

“This is what I got for trying to talk to them, Stevie!” The other boy turns to face him and Steve can see the bruise more clearly now. It looks darker and bigger than it had before and it makes Steve sick to his stomach. Bucky’s chin wobbles as much as his voice does as he whispers, “They don’t listen to me. I’ve tried.”

They both go quiet again and Steve pretends to notice the quick swipe of Bucky’s fingers at his eyes. He forces a smile and nudges the taller boy with his elbow. “You’re gonna make a great lawyer, Buck. You’re already always getting me outta trouble.”

A sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob falls out of Bucky’s mouth as he buries his face in his hands. His shoulders shake and Steve aches to touch him, to reassure him that this isn’t the end. But he can’t think of any words that can ease this sort of pain. They’ve been side by side for over a decade now, never spent more than a day apart from each other, and now they might as well be getting sent to different ends of the country.

“When do you leave?”

Bucky doesn’t answer him and Steve picks at the skin around his nails. The bedroom seems to close in on them and all he wants to do is reach out and take Bucky’s hand in his. But it’s not right; it wouldn’t be appropriate. They’re friends but friendship only goes so far.

“Buck, when do you have to leave?”

“End of summer,” Bucky says, a little too fast, a little too sharp. He still doesn’t look at Steve and there’s a shakiness in the older boy’s voice that makes him worry. “I don’t want to g-go to Harvard. I c-can’t leave Brooklyn, I j-just can’t,” Bucky suddenly says, frantic and thick. “Steve, you gotta—you gotta help m-me. I c-can’t leave you.”

“It’s only four—”

“Steve, I gotta—maybe your Ma will let me stay—maybe I’ll just say I left and I can j-just…” Bucky’s gaze is fixed on some far-off point on the wall, eyes glazed over and unfocused. He trails off, mumbling incoherently and barely stopping to catch his breath. “I c-can’t go…I c-can’t go…”

Steve finally grabs at his trembling fist and forcibly uncurls his clenched fingers. “It’s just four years, Buck. It ain’t that long,” he says gently. “Plus, I bet you’ll meet some pretty college dames and forget all about my ugly mug.”

If the other boy hears him, he doesn’t answer. Still has the same numb look in his eyes.

“Buck?”

“Are you gonna miss me?” Bucky whispers. It sends goose pimples down Steve’s arms when he hears how hollow his voice is. “When I go, are you gonna miss me?”

“Of course I’m gonna miss you,” Steve says as his eyebrows knit together in the center of his forehead. “In what world could you leave me where I ain’t gonna miss you?” His thumb traces over the brunet’s racing pulse point. “You’re my best friend.”

A tear slips down the side of Bucky’s nose and, when Steve reaches out to brush it away, the older boy catches his wrist before he can make contact. Bucky blinks back to reality, his stormy blue eyes fraught with panic as he pulls away. He stares at Steve like he’s either going to grab him again or he’s going to make a run for it. His mouth parts just enough for a single word to fall out with a single breath. “Steve…”

Steve moves to rise but suddenly all the hysteria washes from Bucky’s face. Like some hidden relief has rinsed the infectious alarm from his mind. Steve swallows back his apprehension and asks, “Buck? You okay?”

A saccharine smile pulls at the taller boy’s mouth as he nods. “Yeah, I just—I gotta get home, Stevie,” he murmurs, pulling his jacket on but never breaking eye contact. “I’ll see you—” He pauses, as if the words he was going to choose weren’t quiet right. “I’m gonna miss you too, Steve. I need you to know that.”

“You ain’t going to college until fall,” Steve says, almost confused. Bucky had months before he was set to go up to Massachusetts. It wasn’t a time for goodbyes. Not yet.

Bucky blinks again, that same distracted look creeping back in. “Yeah, yeah…Right…” he mutters offhandedly before heading back to the window. He takes one last fleeting look at Steve, lingering on his face like he’s going to forget it or something.

Steve waves a little as the window opens and his friend disappears back into the night.

~~~

He doesn’t see Bucky for two days which makes him worry a little, but he knows that Bucky’s extended family was supposed to come from Indiana soon to celebrate his graduation—he just can’t remember when. His Ma asks when Bucky’s going to come around for dinner and all Steve can do is shrug and mutter, “Soon.”

It’s Saturday morning and he’s finishing up the last of his paper route when Steve sees four familiar faces from across the street. Bucky’s parents and his two sisters, Rebecca and Miriam, dressed to the nines and clearly on their way to the synagogue.

But Bucky isn’t with them.

He’s nowhere to be seen, not even when Steve cranes his neck to see down the block. Steve knows that Bucky never misses Saturday morning services, not even when he had pneumonia a few years back. Dodging through traffic, Steve calls, “Mr. and Mrs. Barnes! Wait!”

They stop and George looks back at him with a mildly disgruntled expression. “Steven,” he responds with a curt nod.

Steve’s chest tightens and he knows it’s not just from running across the street. He swallows back his beating heart and asks, “Where’s—where’s Bucky? He’s usually with you guys when you go to—”

“James is packing his things before he leaves for Cambridge tomorrow morning,” George says, jaw tightening as his mouth presses into a thin line. “I decided it was no longer a good choice for him to stay in Brooklyn any longer. He needs to be preparing for his studies, not spending his summer galavanting around with a friend.” The older man spits the last word out so venomously that it cuts Steve to his core. He steps back as George adjusts his hat and says, “Now Steven, if you’ll excuse us.”

Everything in his body turns to lead as he watches the Barnes family continue on down the sidewalk. Rebecca throws an apologetic look over her shoulder but doesn’t stop to offer her sympathies as she follows her parents, her younger sister’s hand held tight in her own.

Bucky was leaving. Bucky was leaving tomorrow. Bucky was leaving tomorrow and he didn’t fucking tell him.

All Steve can see is red.

He shoves his newspaper bag behind his back and runs as fast as he can the three blocks back to Bucky’s apartment building. Every muscle in his body aches and his mind is screaming in unbridled fury as he digs the spare key from the space behind the loose brick outside the Barnes’ house. The door slams behind him as Steve storms up the stairs, shouting, “Bucky, where the hell are you?!”

Bucky was going to leave without even saying goodbye.

The hallway spins and Steve can barely breathe in his fury. “Barnes!” he screams, his fists shaking as he unclenches them to wrap one hand around Bucky’s doorknob. “You goddamn fucking ass—”

He wrenches the door open and the world suddenly stops.

Steve doesn’t notice the rope, not at first. He doesn’t notice the way Bucky’s face has grown heavy with trapped blood, nor the way his once-perfect mouth hangs open in a frozen, silent gasp. No. What he first notices is the faint swing that his body still makes and the four terrible inches that separate Bucky’s toes from the ground.

One of his shoes has fallen off.

“No.” Steve’s feet fall over themselves as he rushes forward, grabbing at Bucky’s legs. “No, no, no, Bucky, please,” he repeats over and over again, desperately trying to find some deep-seated strength to hold the older boy up. Create some slack in the rope. Take the tension off his neck. Anything. “No, no, please, God.” Steve’s heart is pounding so hard that he can’t hear anything but the thud thud thud of blood in his ears. It beats in sync with every broken, “No, no, no!” that tumbles from his mouth.

This can’t be happening.

His hands slip on Bucky’s thighs, unable to lift him enough to do any good, and suddenly Steve can’t hold back the sob that claws its way from his throat. This can’t be happening, this can’t be—

A knife. He needs a knife.

The hallway spins as Steve tears toward the kitchen, fumbling open every drawer he can find until his fingers wrap around a paring knife. He hears his Ma’s voice in the back of his head, saying, ‘Don’t you dare run with that knife, Steven,’ but he can’t imagine a world where she’d tell him that now.

Setting the fallen chair upright again, Steve grabs at the rope with shaking hands. It’s above his head, almost out of his grasp, and he’s so close to Bucky’s face that he almost feels his stomach abandon him. “Please be okay, please be okay,” he sobs through mouthfuls of despair, frantically sawing at the rope he can barely see. The blade catches his palm but Steve can’t stop. He can’t stop, can’t do anything but keep cutting the rope, shoulders burning with every motion.

“Please, Bucky—please just—”

The last strand on the rope snaps and Bucky’s body hits the floor with a sickening thud.

Steve’s hands shake as he fumbles with the knot that he can’t see through his tears. He waits for a flutter of eyes—a shocked inhale—but all that comes is the red stain that grows on the rope from the cut in his hand. “W-Wake up!” he cries, breath coming too fast to manage a scream. He finally gets the noose released enough to pull over Bucky’s limp head and turns the taller boy onto his back.

He grabs Bucky’s face and shakes his head, pleading, “Wake up! W-Wake up, you f-fucking asshole! P-Please!” The other boy’s lips have begun to tinge purple around the inside and Steve’s stomach leaps to the back of his throat. “Wake up! W-Wake up!”

Bucky’s head falls back as Steve drops it, slamming his fist against Bucky’s chest in a blind, panic-induced rage. He cut Bucky down. Why wasn’t that enough? His fist slams down over and over as he lets every single betrayed bit of anger free. Bucky couldn’t leave him, not without saying goodbye.

A rush of air into stale lungs sends Steve falling back with a frightened sob.

~~~

Bucky’s eyes roll back out of his head as he coughs weakly, hands scrabbling at his neck. He can’t see anything but the blurry lights overhead, can’t hear anything but a voice screaming at him in anger. No, this can’t be happening. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be saved.

His throat burns—throbbing in a sharp circle where the rope had been—and when he wheezes through another breath, the barbs travel straight through his sternum. His fingers tremble as Bucky’s hand falls back and the warmth of darkness closes around him again.

His eyes flutter shut.

A sharp slap across his face brings him back to the light and Bucky tries to focus on the face over him. He sees a flash of furious blue eyes and for a second he wonders if it’s his father. But then the blond hair comes into focus. “Steve…” he mouths, to weak to let it slip out loud.

“You—son of—Mother Mar—stard!” The words come sporadically, like his head is getting dunked in and out of water with every thud of his heart. This can’t be happening. He was supposed to end all of this. The anger. The disappointment. He was going to have to go off to Massachusetts just like his parents wanted him to, but now he wasn’t even going to have Steve’s warm smile waiting for him when he got back.

He had his life and nothing else. Worthless.

Bucky coughs again and groans, hand coming up to cover his esophagus. His burning lungs are still pulling air at a terribly fast rate and he wonders if his body is making up for lost time. How long was he asleep? How long was he hanging there? Why hadn’t Steve just let him go?

“I’m calling for an ambulance.” Steve’s hands leave his face and Bucky’s hand flies out in a desperate attempt to stop him. “You gotta go to a hospital, you gotta—”

“Pl…St…” Every breath and sound burns his lungs and he looks up at the younger man with desperate eyes. Steve’s blotchy, tearstained face spins around Bucky’s fuzzy field of vision. “My…m’fa…” His father. His father and mother would find out if Steve took him to a hospital and then there’d be hell to pay. His fingers catch a slender wrist and it hurts to swallow. His eyes grow too blurry to see again and tears pool on his irises as he gasps, “Pl…Please…”

Bucky hears Steve let out a terrible, wretched sob and it’s a miracle he hasn’t started crying himself.

He has no reason to.

“You gotta get up,” the younger boy begs, pulling at his shoulders. “Get up, you fucking asshole; I gotta get you to Ma.” Bucky struggles to get up—the effort of holding his head steady burns down his spine and up through his skull. He’s never felt pain like this. Steve should have left him there. Steve should have just let him die like he wanted.

The apartment building that the Rogers live in is just across the street but, right now, it might as well be a mile. Every step drags, legs and feet made of lead and lungs bleeding. Bucky’s hand cradles his throat, braced against Steve’s thin frame.

“Ma’s gonna know what to do. She’ll—she’ll get a doctor who won’t talk to your folks. She’ll make sure you’re okay and you won’t have to go to Massachusetts and you won’t do anything like that again,” Steve babbles as they stumble across the street. He’s frantic, Bucky can tell. He wants to say something to the other boy but he can’t seem to choke the words out. “You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna he okay.”

Bucky’s eyelids grow heavy, his legs shaking with every movement. He still can’t see where he’s going, the headache blinding him. “St…Ste…” he wheezes as the younger boy drags him up the steps.

“Shut the fuck up; stop talking,” Steve snaps, patching his wobbling voice with the anger he can’t let go of. “You don’t get to fucking talk, not now.”

There’s an ache building deep in his lungs that Bucky is starting to think has nothing to do with trying to hang himself. It comes in waves like nausea, when he realizes that Steve won’t look at him, when he realizes that he still has to own up to what he’s done. When he realizes his kid sisters will find out he tried to abandon them. His stomach churns deep in his gut and Bucky can’t bury the overwhelming guilt.

His legs give out entirely when the door to the Rogers’ apartment opens. “Ma!” Steve wails, desolate and wretched as it tears through the apartment. “Ma, Bucky tried t-to—”

Bucky looks up through half-lidded, bloodshot eyes and meets Sarah Rogers’ face—gone white with fear—and suddenly can’t stop the tears that flood down his cheeks. The apartment spins as she eases him down to the floor and onto his back, the pressure on his neck finally relieved. “Steven, you should’ve come to get me immediately; you shouldn’t have moved him.”

“I didn’t know what to do!” the younger boy screams, slamming the door shut.

“James, look at me, please,” Sarah says, calm and focused as she presses careful fingers to the sides of his neck. He whimpers in pain and tries to focus on her face. Her blue eyes are wide and brimming with nervousness she won’t set free, but Bucky can still barely see, everything coming through in a haze. “James, you need to look at me.”

“Am…” he croaks, the world flickering black and white. “Ste…”

“Shhh, you don’t need to talk right now.” She turns to her son. “Steven, I need ice and something to stabilize his neck. Bring me the morphine as well.” Her shell begins to crack as she looks back at Bucky, smoothing a careful hand over his salt-stained face, and whispers, “Oh, James…”

Cold seeps up into his skull and warmth through his chest after a sharp prick in his arm. Steve adjusts the ice and towel around his neck and asks, “Is he gonna be okay, Ma?”

“He needs rest,” she says, voice floating through Bucky’s ears like waves on the beach. “You’re lucky you found him in time. It could have been much worse.” There’s a harsh sound of muffled crying and Bucky just wants to reach out for his friend. “Steven, he’s going to be okay. You did well, sweetheart.”

“He w-was just h-hanging there,” the younger boy sobs. “I c-couldn’t…Ma, he almost d-died…”

Bucky’s mouth opens and he croaks some tainted noise that might be Steve’s name. His eyes slip shut as the drugs burn through him like wildfire. Everything fades and he sinks into the humming darkness, Steve’s tears burning into his memory as he slips into unconsciousness.

~~~

Steve isn’t sure when he stops crying but it feels like an eternity.

He stares at the spreading bruises around Bucky’s neck and underneath his closed eyes, and feels every ounce of hope seep from his body. He can’t get image of Bucky just hanging there, feet dangling four goddamn inches off the ground. His heart hasn’t stopped pounding, even now that Bucky is sleeping peacefully on the floor, and it’s starting to make his head spin.

“Ma, what am I gonna tell his parents?” he croaks, hands shaking as he smoothes his fingers over the older boy’s slowly rising chest. Steve looks at his Ma and feels his lungs stutter, feels the tears coming again. “Ma, what do I tell them?”

She shakes her head and doesn’t look at him, only checks Bucky’s bruising before adjusting the ice. She fumbles with the needle on the ground and still doesn’t look at him.

“Ma?”

Her eyes close tight and she sits back on her heels, covering her mouth with both hands. Her hair falls to cover her face but Steve can still hear her struggling to muffle her sobbing. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for anyone. If Bucky was just able to stay in Brooklyn, none of this would have ever happened. Bile rises in the back of his throat and Steve swallows it back down alongside his heart.

~~~

Bucky wakes up groggy and nauseous, black spots swimming around his eyes. There’s a sharp soreness in his wrist that he didn’t notice before. He raises it shakily and finds if splinted and bandaged. He tries to turn his head to look for Steve but stops when the sharp, stabbing burn shoots down through his shoulders. “Steve?” he croaks weakly. “Ms. Sarah?”

All he gets is silence.

His chin wobbles and his face crumples in on itself, tears coming easily this time. “Steve…” he whimpers, his throat dry as sandpaper. “Hel…Help…”

“What does it say?”

Steve’s voice comes so suddenly that it makes him flinch with a shuddering sob. The younger boy’s face comes into his field of vision. Steve’s face is swollen from crying, his blue irises sharp against the bloodshot whites. He holds up a crumpled piece of paper and Steve’s thinly veiled anger creeps up his throat. “What does this fucking say, Buck?”

Bucky knows Steve can’t read the loopy scrawling he’s done on the page, just three short lines in Yiddish. He should’ve written something longer, something explaining why he was doing what he tried to do. He wasn’t expecting anyone but his parents to find him, wasn’t expecting having to tell Steve what he wrote at his most desperate. Bucky struggles to swallow, his throat still alarmingly sore. “Please…” he begs, the blond’s face swimming through his tears. “I…I can’t…”

“Tell me what this fucking says!” Steve screams, teeth bared and wild. “Tell me what it fucking says, you selfish fucking bastard!”

The paper crumples in Bucky’s hand as the other boy shoves it between his fingers. He shudders through a sob and closes his eyes. His stomach turns and twists in his gut and Bucky feel the tracks of saltwater creep back into his hairline. “I need—I need t-to just…” He doesn’t have to read it; he knows the words by heart. “ _Bury me in Brooklyn. I d-didn’t want to leave. I’m s-sorry, Mame and Tate._ ” He opens his eyes and sees Steve’s helpless face staring back at him. “Th-That’s what it s-says…I’m s-sorry Steve…”

“You were gonna leave me, Buck.” The betrayal in the younger boy’s voice hurts more than any of his injuries. Bucky reaches out his bandaged hand but Steve pulls away like he’s been burned. “You were just gonna kill yourself and what would I have done? What would’ve happened if I hadn’t cut you down?” Steve spits, so desperately trying to keep his strong exterior up. “Did you even think about me?”

All the goddamn time, he wants to say. All the time and losing you was going to be the reason I did this, he wants to say. I love you, he wants to say, but doesn’t and so he says nothing.

“Ma’s talking to your folks,” Steve says and Bucky brings his arm up, hiding his face in his elbow. A sob wracks his body, chest aching. “You should’ve seen her face, Buck. You really hurt her. You hurt me.”

He can’t stop crying. It hurts so much. Hurts so much that Bucky would’ve rather gone through the pain of the sudden drop and the rope around his neck again rather than have Steve keep looking at him like that. He’s going to lose everything. He’s going to be all alone, just knowing Steve hates him and Bucky can’t do a damn thing about it.

He’s never wanted to die more—not even in the moment when he stepped off that chair.

“Bucky, look at me,” he hears Steve say. Bucky’s hyperventilating. He’s dragging his hands over his soaking skin, blubbering desperate words in broken English syllables and incoherent Yiddish. “Buck, look at me.” He needs a gun next time, something that he can’t be saved from. He can’t do this; it’s just too much. Steve’s hands wrench his own from his face and Bucky can’t stop crying. “ _Look at me!_ ” Steve barks, dark and cold and, God, everything hurts so much.

Bucky’s breath comes in triple and what’s left of the world drops out from underneath him.

“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me why I didn’t get a note too,” Steve says through shaking syllables, his voice finally cracking. “You were gonna kill yourself and you didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye to me. Why didn’t I get one too?”

It’s like a knife to the gut. Bucky can taste the blood that seeps between his teeth as he chews open his lip. “I—” Every explanation comes up short and he knows he has to tell the truth, as painful as it will be. He’s going to lose Steve anyway, why not just let the final blow come. He sucks in a shuddering breath as tears flood past his eyelashes. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t think of anything to write other than…Other t-than I l-love you.” A sob claws its way out his bloody throat. Steve’s mouth falls open with a soft, broken noise. “I c-couldn’t l-let—couldn’t let you k-know like t-that and have t’find out from m-my f-folks…”

Steve’s hands fall from his and his eyebrows pull together. “You…you love me.” A statement, not a question; short and hurt like the idea makes him sick. “When?”

“Three y-years,” Bucky sobs, covering his face again. “I’m s-so sorry, S-Steve…”

The younger boy’s fingers tremble as he brushes sweaty hair from Bucky’s forehead. “If you really love me,” he whispers, “you gotta promise that you won’t go and try leaving me like that again. Do you understand me, Buck?”

“Do—Do you l-love me t-too?” Bucky isn’t sure he wants the answer, can’t handle the rejection that he can feel coming. He’s shaking and it’s not just from the pain anymore. “S-Steve?”

His heart slows to a thudding crawl as Steve carefully smoothes his thumbs over the bruised tear tracks on Bucky’s face. “You need to promise me,” the blond repeats, pupils blown and swallowing all the blue. Bucky nods stiffly, head barely moving as he makes that silent vow. In one soft, careful motion, Steve leans down and presses his lips to Bucky’s cheeks. A shuddering gasp falls out of his mouth. “You’re not going anywhere,” Steve breathes against his skin. “Not to Harvard, not back home. You’re staying with me, you understand?”

Bucky nods again, hands scrabbling at Steve’s back to keep him close. There was nothing for him to run from anymore.

He’ll be here to see what comes next.

* * *


End file.
